NOTICE:
The page below has been permenently FROZEN as of January 2000.
Due to resource limitations,
this section of our website is no longer maintained,
so some links may not work and some information may be out of date.
We have retained this page for archive reference only,
and we cannot vouch for its accuracy.
Broken links will not be repaired,
and minor errors will not be corrected.
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Nevada Test Site

Although there may be useful links here,
this page is not actively maintained (after 1997). For new links
see our new Nevada Test Site page.

The Nevada Test Site
is a Rhode Island-sized testing ground
northwest of Las Vegas where the U.S. conducted the majority of its
nuclear weapons tests during the Cold War. From its founding in 1951
until the final Divider test in 1992, over 900 atomic explosions
were detonated in this barren desert. In the 1950s, atomic
tests were conducted above ground and resulted in devastating
health effects to the "Downwinders" northeast of the site in
Nevada and Utah. Since then, tests were conducted only underground,
resulting in a pockmarked "lunar" landscape. The
NTS is operated by the Department of Energy, which has become
increasingly open about the site's history and its environmental
problems. The NTS is bounded on three side by the Nellis Air
Force Range and adjoins "Area 51" a secret military
base at its northeast corner. Today, the Test Site is under
consideration for various storage and processing projects for
dangerous materials, and some non-nuclear and sub-critical explosions are
still conducted there.
[gc 12/5/96]

General Information

The Nevada Proving Ground was created by Pres. Harry Truman on Jan.
11, 1951, and the first atomic test, Operation Ranger, was conducted
on Jan. 27, 1951.
The final nuclear test, Divider, was conducted on Sept. 23, 1992.
In between, there were 99 above ground tests and over 800 below ground
tests.
The NTS is broken up into numbered areas of varying sizes, from 1
to 30, with the omission of Areas 13, 21, 24 and 28. (Area 13 is
an off-site location in the Nellis Range north of Groom Lake.)